What essential hardware and software is required for Multimedia development and delivery?

Introduction

There are legion of hardware and software available for multimedia development, some more widely used than others. The following are a list of some of the essentials.

Scanners
A scanner is a piece of hardware that connects to a PC (Personal Computer). Using an optical lens they scan pictures, objects, film or pieces of text which are then converted to a digital file.
There are many different types available for different uses. These include;
Flatbed Scanner

Found in most offices and many homes around the world, Flatbed Scanners are simple and affordable. Primarily used to scan text from various sizes of paper, they can also accommodate books and other objects that can be flattened.
Placed flat down on its glass surface, with the lid closed, the flatbed scans the images using light sensors.


Photo Scanner

A more professional top of the line scanner, often used in print media, web design, animation, graphic design and so on, photo scanners provide a higher quality scan for photographs, film stock and drawings.


Digital Camera Scanner

These days a more desirable option is to use a digital camera. These allow for a portable, user friendly and often more accurate scan of the desired image or object.
Whilst having their disadvantages over traditional scanners such as interference from surrounding light, they are lightweight, portable and can scan books without the danger of damaging the spine.


3D Scanner

Used extensively in film and computer games, 3D scanners analyse an object of area and collect the data which can the be used to digitally construct 3D models on a computer.


Multi-purpose Scanner

Houses several similarly themed hardware deviced together such as scanners, printers and fax machines.


Rotary Scanner

High speed document scanner, ideal for scaning multiple items in one go.


LCD Projectors

An LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) Projector is a digital device that allows for video, images and text to be displayed on to a screen or other such flat surface.
To achieve this, light is sent through a metal lamp through a prism that divides the light into three poly silicon panles - red, green and blue.
As the polorised light passes through the panels, individual pixies can be opened and closed when so desired, giving the projected image a wide rage of colours and shade


Digital Cameras
Digital cameras are now a mainstay of most peoples lives. Indeed most of us carry one around with us in our mobile phones. They come in many different forms, sizes and prices.

Fujifilm FinePix AX280 Digital Camera £68.30

Low end price wise, this small user friendly camera still has many fine feature's including;

• 14 mega pixels and x5 zoom
• 28mm wide angle lens
• Face detaction with auto 'red eye' removal.

Panasonic Lumix TZ7 Digital Camera £275.00

A higher end camera, with a big focuse on video, namely HD (High Definition) Video.

Featues include;

• 25 mm ultra wide-angle 12x optical zoom LEICA DC lens in compact body
• HD movie recording in AVCHD lite with Dolby stereo digital creator
• Advanced intelligent auto mode with face recognition and movie iA mode
• 3.0 inch, 460,000-dot high-resolution intelligent LCD with wide-viewing angle
• Venus Engine HD with HDMI Compatibility and VIERA Link

Fujifilm FinePix S1600 Digital Camera £129.99

A photography focused camera with a wide angle lense at a still affordable price. Featues include;

• 12 Megapixel camera with 3 inch LCD,15 x optical zoom and 28mm wide angle lens
• Dual Image Stabilisation with up to ISO 6400
• Scene Recognition Auto
• Multi modes including Target Auto Focus, Instant Zoom, Panorama Mode, continuous shooting, manual photographic controls
• Intelligent Face Detection with red-eye removal, high-speed shooting, best framing and histogram display

Vivitar ViviCam 8018 - Digital camera £29.99

Very cheap, entry level camera. Ideal for children or those curious about digital phogrpahy while not yet prepared to spend much money yet.

Featues include;

• Light weight 100g
• 8.1 Megapixels
• 16MB integrated memory

Canon EOS 500D Digital SLR Camera £504.97

Major step up, high quality, high end digital SLR camera capable of full true digital 1080p. Aimed at professionals or amatuers with money to spare.

Featuess include;

• 15.1 megapixel CMOS sensor
• Full HD 1080p movie recording with HDMI output for connection to HDTV
• ISO range up to 12800
• 3.4 frames per second continuous shooting mode
• Wide-area, nine-point, auto focus system with cross-type central AF point

CD/DVD Burners
Nowadays, most or almost all PC's come equipped with either a CD Burner, a DVD Burner or both. In the past these devices were often separate pieces of hardware that had to be purchased, hooked up and installed.
CD's have a smaller capacity than DVD, often 700 or 800MB. They can be used to burn music, in mp3 form up to around 20 songs (averaging 4mins and 5mb per song), saves files (if it is a CD-RW it can do this multile times. Usually around 1000x) and can even be used to burn video although the amount of hardware that would be able to play them is limited.
DVD's have a much much larger storage facility, 4.7GB, and are primarily used to record video but like the CD can also accommodate music and be used as a storage device. Indeed, a mass storage device.


Editing Software 
There are many wonderful and varied software available for the purpose of image manipulation and authoring. These include;


Imaging


Adobe Photoshop

Photoshop is a raster graphics editor which has wowed the software world to become an industry standard and a marquee name for the adobe creative suite.


GIMP

GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free graphic editing program. An impressive freeware devisse, GIMP is able to match its higher priced competitors on almost all fronts.


Microsoft Paint

Bundled free with all Microsoft PC's, paint is an ideal introduction to the world of graphical editing and imaging panipulation. Users can quickly pick up how to draw, crop, copy, paint and erase, may of the mainstay of the more profesional software that they might go on to use at a later date.


Adobe Fireworks

Aother mainstay of the Adobe creative Suite, Fireworks is a bitmap and vector graphics editor. Primarily used in web design, fireword merges easily with adobes web authoring softwares, Flash and Dreamweaver.


Authoring

Windows Movie Maker

Bundled with all windows pc's, Windows Movie Maker is an entry level, user friendly piece of software that introduces newcomers to the world of editing film. 
All the basic mainstays of editing are here including, copy, paste, cut, effects, sound, text and so on.
It is however, infamous for freezing on users and breaking down. If the user is serious about film editing, they would be recommended to look elsewhere for a more professional software after being introduced to Movie Maker.


Adobe Dreamweaver

Web design is often a complicated, mathematical headache, even for experienced and educated programs. Dreamweaver helps to remove many of these headaches by being extremely user friendly. Users can see thier designs take shape almost immediately with this simple and well set out set up.


Flash

Now an industry standard for the web and animation, Flash is highly efficient and powerful tool for drawing, animating and web design. 
Flash uses vector and raster graphics and can manipulate text, colour, video and sound.


Director

Popular for creating CD-ROM packages for software companies and standalone kiosks, Director is an authoring package that allows users to build we sites and create interactive CD-ROMS.